#future! prompt

[cormac-the-bamf]

song for the asking || 8.3

This is my tune for the taking  Take it, don't turn away  I've been waiting all my life 

Cormac:

If you're reading this, it means I'm probably dead. Maybe a vegetable? But I'd rather be dead than a goddmaned vegetable, so I fucking well better be dead. 

I'm not very good with words like this...I guess I should be sorry? And I am, but I'm not at the same time. It was a risk we both knew we were taking, and I've never been afraid to die for something I believe in. Fighting's in the Doyle blood. 

But I am sorry because I love you. Not sure how that happened, but there it is. We don't say it often -- I think of it as implied -- and it's fucking crazy that we ended up who we are, but it's true. I hope you know that.

You don't believe in my muggleborn "superstitions" even though you don't make fun of me for it anymore. I guess I appreciate it. Your face probably does more than I do. Anyway, I'm still going to tell you what my ma always said to me. Don't worry, and when you mourn, remember this: where I am, there's no suffering -- only the glory of heaven. If that means anything to you? I don't know. Just like I don't know if you'll meet me there one day or not, though I like to think so, but either way, don't weep for me.

Just remember. Think of my every now and then. Also let my family know. And never stop fighting.

Oona

He finds the letter while going through her things, a month or so after it happens. Even though she says not to, he weeps. Because whenever his wife wrote it, she clearly didn't know about their son. Their three year-old with his bright, inquisitive eyes asking when he's gonna see his ma again and when Cormac doesn't know how to answer. The son he must now raise alone and he doesn't know how to do it without her.

Once upon a time, they couldn't stand each other. Sure, she was a few years ahead of him in school, and he remembers her -- a fierce and determined Gryffindor girl with a lot of bark and even more bite -- but it isn't until the war that they really meet. She intimidates him and he doesn't like it, with the way he's sure she could kick his arse. She thinks he is a spoiled, arrogant, and stupid pureblood. He thinks she's stubborn, belligerent, and argumentative. Patronising, too, for being the tiny, scrawny sort.

"When are you going to get over that stick up your arse, Doyle, and fucking trust me?" he growls, angry and fed up with her. "You could've gotten us both killed."  

"When hell freezes over, McLaggen," she retorts, eyes flashing. "Now shut yer gob before I do it for ye."

Hell does freeze over, it seems, one day when he saves her life. At first she is not very grateful, but things gradually become different after that. Oona still intimidates him, but her never-back-down attitude, the fire in her eyes, and even her accent grows on him. He finds himself falling in love with a fearless, brash muggleborn Irishwoman and there isn't a thing in the world he can do about it.

Cormac learns she's from Derry -- not Londonderry -- and out of seven kids, she's the only one who is magical. Her family was heavily involved in something called the IRA for a long time, as long as she can remember. It's apparently why she's always says things like "don't let them own you, McLaggen" and has i am not broken i am free tattooed on her ribs. And why she's so ardently proud to be Irish, why she's a fighter, and why she laughs when he tells her about how his great-grandad thought himself the second coming of William Wallace.

Oona Doyle in his life is like waves crashing over him or gasping desperately for breath; it's like being set on fire; it's like dying and being reborn again every morning. For the first time in his life, he has a deep respect for another person. Cormac doesn't even care that she's got him -- hook, line, sinker.

The day he marries her can only be bested by the day their son, Killian, is born. Together, they light up his life with such brightness that it blinds him. In all his wildest dreams, he never imagined it can be this good. Between her and the war he's not the same person he used to be. A man now, yes, but one he can be proud of having become. 

So when she's gone, Cormac is plunged into the darkest, coldest of winters. He starts out angry -- how can she do this to him? If anyone should die first, it ought to be him, damnit! Forget they both led dangerous lives. The anger quickly gives way to an overwhelming feeling of how very lost he is without her. 

He still feels this way, months later, before and after the letter. 

Which is how he leaves one day, takes his son with him, and shows up on Kathleen Doyle's doorstep. She doesn't know who they are at first, and it turns out never got the letter about her daughter's death. At the news, her jaw clenches and she sighs this tired sigh, but then shakes her head and welcomes the two of them in.

"How are ye holdin' up, Cormac?" she asks him, putting a glass of whiskey in front of him while Killian makes a game out of crawling between the table legs. 

"Not well."

"Aye, understandable."

He stares at the drink before taking a long swig, maybe too long, and staring off into space.

"How are you so calm?"

"After a brother, husband, and two sons, I'm no stranger ta loss."

"What's your secret?"

"Faith."

Cormac is quiet, because he doesn't have any of that. For a while, he did, but with his wife gone...not so much.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven...and blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." 

Maybe this whole faith thing is something worth learning, he thinks. 

"They never leave, but ye gotta take it day by day, Cormac."

Day by day...that's something he can try to do. If not for himself, for his son. Because he refuses to continue the cycle of McLaggen men who become bitter, who raise their sons like he was raised. He's going to be different, going to be better, and their son will be different too. She'd want it that way.

[cormac-the-bamf]

waiting for godot || 8.2

No decree or creed can outlaw you  As you take every living thing apart. Little  Master of earth, no one gets to heaven  Without going through you first.

-Yusef Koumyakaa, "Ode to the Maggot"

When war first breaks out, Cormac doesn’t like the idea of choosing sides. He doesn’t want any part of it, really, but the way things happen neutrality is not much of an option. It is do or die.

His father’s side of the family tries todo what they did the first time round — support Voldemort quietly but play the field and lie their way through it. Well, it doesn’t work and they lose everything. Uncle Tiberius and Aunt Aileen argue over which side to back; Aileen says Voldemort and Tiberius says no. The indecisiveness gets them killed.

Cormac’s dad, Doug, is a dumbass, a bully, and a bigot — something his son’s always known. So when his sister dies, it isn’t surprising he chooses the Dark Lord. He believes in sticking with his own kind, the sort of people he thinks have a right to exist, but he dies in the end too.

Cormac thinks the best way to survive is to get the fuck out. Aunt Rachael flees the country early on, and when she tells him to come, he plans to join her. Everything is set to go and he's even holding the portkey to her location.  But at the last minute, he has a revelation. He will not run away, he will not be his mother who left everyone and everything behind and he will not be a survivalist coward like McLaggens are apt to be.

He tells her he can't go, and she is predictably dramatic and devastated. Cormac doesn't know what he's waiting for but it's something in himself, waiting to bubble to the surface, and it needs to surface immediately. Decisions must be made and he cannot sit around idly, twiddling his thumbs, or what's to keep him from being Uncle Tiberius, Aunt Aileen, or Doug?

But here’s the thing he quickly learns: there is no “winning” side, which is funny, because Cormac McLaggen never used to believe in no-win scenarios. But there’s a secret nobody dares whisper about life and death, war or no. In the end, no matter which side a body chooses or if there’s no wars and they live their lives out in quiet banality, everybody ends up in the same place — six feet under the ground.

As the muggles say, ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

[itsparvati]

my baby's smooth as sandpaper || 8.5

She wants to say it all starts with firewhiskey, but that isn’t true. The story they have is bigger than that – more epic. Spanning years and continents, lives ruined, bloodshed…epic. Because no one writes songs about the ones that come easy and when she’s honest with herself, that’s the kind of relationship Parvati’s always dreamed of, even if Theodore Nott is hardly the type of man she saw herself doing it with.

i.

She’s fifteen, walking towards the Gryffindor table giggling with her best friend Lavender Brown – not paying attention to any of the people around her, including a particular Slytherin boy behind her. For reasons unknown, he mutters a trip jinx and watches the embarrassment that ensues when she unceremoniously falls forward. As luck would have it, Parvati’s skirt flies up somewhere during the drop and the entire Great Hall gets a fabulous view of her silky blue knickers.

“Oh Parvati are you alright?” comes Lav’s concerned voice, helping her to her feet. Parvati’s trying to keep calm as she dusts herself off, ignoring the hoots and hollers. One person is closer than the rest, though, and she can’t ignore him.

“Nice choice, Patil – I bet if you’d shown those to Potter last year, he wouldn’t have ditched you at the Yule Ball.”

Theodore Nott wears a disgustingly self-satisfied smile, leering at her and she wants to knock it off his face with her fist or a well-armed hex. But no, that’s exactly what he wants from her and she’s not going to give it to him. Instead, a devious plan involving Professor Trelawney and a crystal ball beings to form in her mind.

On the bright side, Parvati thinks, it could have been worse. Good thing she isn't wearing a thong.

ii.

One gloriously clear and cloudless night, not long before it all goes to hell in a handbasket, Parvati makes her way up to the Astronomy Tower. She has this habit of going up there alone to look at the stars, for no real reason other than she likes it. What surprises her is finding Theo there, by himself, looking dangerously contemplative.

“What are you doing?”

“If you’re going to ask me stupid questions, you can leave.”

He’s in a strange mood, that much she can tell straight on, but still acerbic and himself as ever, as evidenced by his reply. Oddly enough, she sits down beside him anyway and turns her gaze upwards. Parvati’s never been good at being quiet so eventually, as the silence grates on her and becomes too much, she finally speaks up.

“Which is your favourite?” she asks curiously, glancing at him from the periphery of her vision. Theo shrugs but does not answer. Alright then, she thinks to herself, and takes a deep breath.

“I like them all, really, except maybe Castor and Pollux,” she continues (to this day she refuses to refer to them as Gemini or the Twins). “They’re together in the sky forever with one name and it annoys the shit out of me.”

He pauses whatever it is that’s running through his brain to give her a funny look before looking back at the sky. She takes it to be a good sign and they spend a while there like that, with her babbling on about the constellations and their stories. Parvati loves stories – they are what draw her to things like this, not the Divination or anything else. Just the stories.

For reasons she has never quite understood, at one point, he leans over and tells her “shut up already, Patil,” and full-on kisses her. To this day, Theo says he simply felt like it; nothing more complicated than that, and accentuates it with a shrug. The real part she doesn’t get is why she kisses him back. Or how they end up having a very heavy snogging session before she even realises what’s happening. It’s the feel of his cold hand inching dangerously high on her inner thigh that startles her, makes her pull back.

“I have to…go…wash my hair?”

It’s a terrible excuse and says nothing of her intelligence, but she’s mortified because hello, she’s dating Michael Corner and this is Theodore Nott and what the hell even was that?

She avoids him like the plague afterwards – which she suspects was his intention all along since she’s a shit like that – and then the chaos comes and the night in the Astronomy Tower becomes the last she really sees of him for a few years.

iii.

When they meet again, it’s at some party with random Ministry officials, entrepreneurs like herself, reporters and so many other people it’s insane. She comes with a date who ends up being horribly boring and whom she ditches, somehow finding herself face-to-face with someone she hasn’t seen in a long time.

(This is why she says Firewhiskey started it all because Parvati is sure that without it, the likelihood that some sarcastic and witty banter would not have led to an Astronomy-Tower-Sequel in the back corner of the cloakroom that went much, much further than snogging).

The funny thing is how after their cloakroom romp, which she recounts to Lavender the next day in panicked detail, is not the end. It is a sort of beginning. Lav says she probably won’t see him again in years so not to worry about it, but then he shows up at her place in the rebuilt Diagon Alley.

“You own a pub? Wonders never cease.”

“Did you show up here for some purpose other than to be a prick? Or did that seem good enough reason all on it’s own? ”

“It’s a compliment. I would’ve bet anything you’d do something useless like start a makeup line.”

“Oh, so I should be thanking you on my hands and knees, I see.”

“I was about to suggest dinner, but now that I know what you look like on your hands and knees, I wouldn’t complain.”

Not exactly the most charming of beginnings, but he manages to goad her into it none the less.

iv.

They are not a fairy-tale couple and nothing is perfect. It is not steady and by no means calm.

Parvati instigates arguments, they fight and scream, because she can and it keeps things interesting. Theo fluctuates between apathy and the kind of possessiveness that would make most women run the opposite direction. There’s this sort of magnetism between them, and when they are together, people can’t help but watch them in awe. They can’t ever keep their hands off each other other, even that time Parvati’s grandmother visited from India and insisted on dinner at the house they share in the country. Somehow she managed to finish cooking even while he distracted her constantly, and with twenty minutes to her grandmother’s arrival he bent her over the dinner table. Parvati was still adjusting her dress when the doorbell rang.

Her and Theo still don’t make any logical sense, not by any accounts. He is not the sort of man she ever pictured being with, and yet somehow they work. In their own way.

Yes, it is completely illogical and nobody gets it and every once in a while Parvati wakes up next to him and wonders what the hell she’s doing, but then there are moments when she’s never been more sure of anything in her entire life. Real life isn’t like La Belle Est La Bête; love doesn’t completely transform you from a monster to a human being. But with Parvati and Theo, something extraordinary happens — in the messiness, they become a strange kind of beautiful. They are more than their sins and they are better, but only together.

[cormac-the-bamf]

Assignment 8.0 || dare ya to be who you will

Cormac McLaggen did not believe in any of that Divination shite.

That's his disclaimer, because somehow he finds himself sitting in front of the crystal ball belonging to that quacked lady from Professor Slughorn's party. Yeah, maybe he's going to look into it, but none of it will be real. Because things like fate make him uncomfortable and he'd rather believe in a world where he gets to decide for himself. Or at least one where he has the illusion of choice; that's still infinitely better than one where he doesn't, where the future is set in stone and there's not a single thing he can do about it.

If that's true -- if fate and immutable futures are true -- then Cormac is pretty much doomed. Doomed to be his father or his Uncle Tiberius, two things which terrify him but he doesn't quite know how to escape. He knows exactly what that future should look like. It involves a respectable, boring Ministry job unless he can make it in Quidditch, and then involves marrying an equally respectable girl who is preferably pureblood like him. Merlin only knows what kind of reaction most of his family would have if he married "below him." The truth of where Cormac comes from cannot be denied no matter how many facades of neutrality his family might put on, regardless of the words they whisper in the ear of each type of person...and that truth is this. McLaggens are pureblood supremacists, death eaters or not, because they are too proud of their legacy and the blood which runs through their veins not to be. From there, he will raise his own children by the same standards, rules, and regulations that suffocate him, becoming another in a long line of the ill-fated elite who become that which they never want to be: their parents. His life will be dull and full of unfilled questions and passions never to be explored or acknowledged and one day he'll go six feet under like everybody else.

That is why Cormac sits in front of the crystal ball without being able to really look at it. What will he do if he looks and sees that? He might as well just throw in the fucking towel and give up, all hopes crushed beneath fate's giant combat boot. Freedom, independence, dreams and shit won't matter anymore and those are things he clings to stubbornly -- like a tiny but rugged cairn terrier who won't give you your sock back, not without a proper fight -- even if people don't see it in him.

And yet, he eventually has to look down. What he sees? Well, it surprises him. In a good way.

Inside the little crystal ball, which seems to suck him right into it, he can make out a figure zooming around on a broom. It's a quidditch match, and of course he's in front of the goals because he's a Keeper. The colors he wears indicate his team is the Pride of Portree -- well, that's a bit bollocks, he thinks, because why wouldn't he be playing for the Magpies? Either way, he's doing an exceptional job defending the goal posts. Obviously.

The crowd is at fever pitch -- a glance at the scoreboard shows the game is close enough that one more goal with the seeker's success would catapult the other team to victory. Off in the corner of the view, two seekers fly past him as they dive after the snitch. There's a chaser rushing at him, but he blocks their attempt. So they go at it again in a last ditch efforts to push themselves far enough ahead, but Cormac is consistent. So when the Pride's seeker fails to catch the snitch, it doesn't matter, because they've won anyway.

The victory tastes pretty damn sweet, even if Cormac's only watching as the whole team and the crowd goes wild. On the ground, they slap each other on the back and his own chest is puffed with pride. There's somebody waiting for him in front of the locker rooms -- well there's a lot of reporters too but this somebody seems to be special because he's only got eyes for them. All Cormac can make out before the picture goes fuzzy and then black is a head of bushy brown hair.

Afterwards, he tries to push away the images. Because as much as they invigorate him and give him hope, he still doesn't believe in that shit. He can't let himself get comfortable just because some batty old seer's crystal ball told him everything would be all fine and dandy in the end.

Still...it was nice.

[itsparvati]

Assignment 8.1 || the everlasting gaze

After hearing about Cassandra Vablatsky’s crystal ball being on loan to Hogwarts, Parvati jumped at the chance to look into it. Even the idea of standing in the same room as it — getting to touch it — would’ve done it for her. But getting to use it? That was way beyond all of her wildest dreams and imaginations.

At the same time, she was nervous. Of course she’d gazed into a crystal ball a billion times before and seen things, but this…this was different. She didn’t doubt her future, per se, and she wasn’t afraid of it. Parvati had faith it’d be punctuated by meaningful relationships and overall happiness. At least, she hoped. But somehow, the situation at hand felt infinitely more real than anything they’d ever done in Divination class.

Sitting in front of the crystal ball of a renowned seer and one of her personal idols, Parvati was filled with awe, excitement, and anxiety. But she did as was her way in any other thing — she jumped wildly in, head first, without second thought of regrets.

She can see herself, like she’s at the muggle cinema, watching lives play out before her on a large screen. The first thing Parvati notices is the grin on her own face, and then her overall self. She’s impressed — her hair is long, hanging down in a loose plait and dressed sharply. But it isn’t in loud sort of way; a tight, skinny-fit pair of black slacks and a soft, off-white blouse with a see-through quality too it can be seen beneath the robes she’s wearing. Her shoes, of course, are fabulous — a heeled boot with gold accents to match the subtle hoops of the same colour in her ears.

At least she knows she’s stylish in the future, not that it comes as any surprise. And that she and Padma are still close, because she’s standing facing her sister. They laugh together, holding hands with men whose faces she can’t quite put a finger on. Parvati sees a ring on her sister’s finger, but not on her own, which is when she notices the dark-skinned little girl in the arms of the man next to Padma.

In the end, it’s what she feels that strikes her most, not what she actually sees. This part is completely different than watching a film. It makes up for the silent audio — she can tell they’re talking but can’t hear a word — and fills in the gaps with meaning. Parvati feels an overwhelming happiness for her sister, and a delighted pride when the little girl shoots her a bright, killer smile. There’s this knowledge, a kind of certainty, which tells her she’s successful and fulfilled. What exactly her job is doesn’t matter, and who the men are in the scene doesn’t either. An intense affection and love radiates out during the whole encounter, so she knows she’s finally found the one she’s still looking for. All in all, it confirms what her eyes show her, which is contentment.

She watches with interest as the man beside her leans closer, their shoulders touching. The two of them start to walk away, but his mouth is practically on her ear. It’s like he can’t help but divulge something important, something reserved just for her, that can’t wait until later. To Parvati’s surprise, his deep and gravelly voice breaks the silence of the vision deftly in two.

"You know our kid will be even cuter, right? In fact…let’s go make one right now, shall we?"

He gives her a wink and is wearing this insufferable grin that makes her swat at him, albeit playfully.

Whether or not they went and…you know…Parvati didn’t find out because after that, she again felt the hard wood of the chair against her back and her fingers clutching at the tablecloth. It was over, she was back to reality. But when she left, the feeling of how much she wanted more didn’t leave her. Hello, future!

[itsparvati]

Random future Drabble

Parvati Patil is a twenty-four year old grown woman, with a successful job as a section editor at Witch Weekly, and even gets to travel the world sometimes. She is hardly a child — probably has not been a child since her sixth year at Hogwarts when everything began to go to hell.

Why is it, then, that she lays outside in her backyard at night, just staring up at the stars like she is still seven years old? There is no Padma around to drag out with her and listen to the stories she makes up, no mother to yell at her to come inside, though. Just her, the blanket beneath her, the sky above her, and the slight chill in the night air.

Maybe she is not a child physically, maybe she even grew up at some point, but there is still a young, child Parvati who lives inside her and comes out at times like this. Other times, too, in the excited and full-of-wonder looks which are like a second nature, or when she chases her niece, Shonali, around Padma’s house, full of giggles.

Parvati lives in the countryside, surrounded by the Pennines, not terribly far from where she grew up. It is much quieter here than in the city, though. Most people are surprised she makes her home there, instead of in the exciting hustle and bustle of London or elsewhere. She likes the quiet nights, especially for times like this.

“What on earth are you doing?” asks a familiar, amused voice — her boyfriend. This is their ritual; he comes outside and finds here laying out, as if he doesn’t know, and she grins up at him like a third year Hogwarts student on their first trip to Honeydukes or Zonko’s. She pulls him down onto the blanket, and they both sit up, shoulders touching. They are waiting while the full moon hangs low in the sky, watching them, watching the world. He asks her about a constellation, Andromeda, and so she indulges him.

“Once there was a king, Cepheus, who ruled over a kingdom by the sea. His wife was very beautiful, but very vain — Queen Cassieopeia,” she says, voice lazy and dreamy as she points them out in the sky. “Their daughter, Andromeda, was even more so, and the Queen was as proud as she was vain. So she once boasted that her beloved daughter was more beautiful and appealing than even the Nereids. The sea nymphs were offended, and complained to Poseidon, god of the sea, who saw fit to punish the queen for her arrogance.”

“Oh really now?” he asks with eyebrows quirked, biting back a smile. He knows the story well, for she’s told him half a dozen times.

“Yes, really — which is why he sent a terrible sea monster to ravage the kingdom. Cepheus, desperate, consulted the Oracle of the god Apollo, who told him the only way to appease Posiden was to sacrifice his daughter to the monster. He loved Andromeda, but he had to save his kingdom, so Andromeda was stripped naked and chained to a rock.”

“A whole new meaning to bondage, I suppose.”

“Oh shush!” she chastises him, though it is playful. “Perseus, on his way home after killing Medusa, caught sight of Andromeda, chained to the rock, and thought her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He decided to save her, killing the sea monster, and he said to her—”

“These are not the chains you deserve to wear, but rather those that link fond lovers together,” her boyfriend supplies, wrapping an arm around her. Parvati is about to add how Perseus and Andromeda get married, but a low howl sounds in the distance - it is what they have been waiting for. There is a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she reaches up to cup a hand round her mouth. Throwing her head back, without a care in the world, she imitates the howl, baying at the lonely moon.

He joins in, and soon they chase each other around the yard, laughing and howling like a pair of children. The two of them collapse on the ground, breathless. He leans over like Parvati knows he will, placing kisses along her jaw and then on her mouth. The last part of the ritual, you see, is where they make like werewolves under the stars even though it is so terribly cliche.

See? There are perks to having no neighbours.  

[itsparvati]

random future drabble

50 dead. Just a number, right? Not that large in comparison to what might have been. But 50 is not just a number — fifty beings, all of whom were once alive and breathing, now dead. Some of them paintings, house-elves, centaurs, some were Death Eaters, and Lord Voldemort himself. She killed someone, even.

People who are her friends and her classmates lay on the floor, some wounded and some lifeless. What is more ugly, more cruel, more uncomfortable than this?

It breaks her. Parvati wants to cry, but she cannot. She will not.

No, today, she will be strong.